A critically ill British doctor has been evacuated from a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak.
Footage shows medics wearing hazmat suits boarding the luxury MV Hondius off the coast of Cape Verde to get three patients to specialist treatment in Europe.
Separate videos and images show the patients – also wearing personal protective equipment – lying on stretchers as they are wheeled into an ambulance.
A 56-year-old Brit is among the three people taken from the boat on Wednesday, the Dutch foreign ministry confirmed.
The outbreak of the rare, rat-borne illness that has a 40 per cent mortality rate has left three people dead and several others seriously ill.
The emergency evacuation comes after a flight scheduled to escort the British doctor – suffering with ‘acute respiratory symptoms’ – to the Canary Islands was cancelled without explanation, and follows Cape Verde officials’ refusal to let the boat dock on the island.
The other two evacuees are a 41-year-old Dutchman and a 65-year-old German.
While the Dutchman is also presenting with ‘acute symptoms’, the German is asymptomatic but is understood to have been a close contact of a person who died on the ship on May 2.